Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are proliferating in both home and enterprises. Such wireless networks may be used for web browsing, file transferring, audiovisual streaming, sending and receiving messages, and other purposes. As wireless connectivity spreads, the likelihood of radio frequency (RF) activity from other bands and overlaying bands used in wireless networking bands increases for any given location, resulting in interference for a greater percentage of wireless network users.
Further, because wireless networks operate in unlicensed bands in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz regions of the RF spectrum, many other RF devices transmit information (or noise) on these frequencies as well, causing interference to the WLAN communication. Examples of various sources and types of interference seen by a wireless network may include microwave ovens, which cause slow periodic interference; cordless phones, which cause interference of a type referred to as “slow hopper;” a Bluetooth headset (causing fast hopper interference); digital spread spectrum (DSS) cordless phones, which cause constant custom waveform interference; and wireless surveillance cameras, which cause constant standard waveform interference. In addition, other nearby WLANs operating on the same channel, such as that of a neighbor, can cause interference.
As is understood, RF interference in wireless networking results in an effective reduction of available data rates and/or range, causing poor user experience. While a technically knowledgeable user may be able to mitigate a regularly occurring interference problem by reconfiguring networking devices to operate on another channel, many of the sources of interference transmit intermittently, whereby even if one problem was solved by changing to another channel, another problem that occurs intermittently might arise, which is more difficult to detect and resolve.
Further, while some application programs using WLAN communications may not be perceptibly affected by interference, such as web browsing, other programs may be highly sensitive to interference, such as application programs directed towards the streaming of content that occupies large bandwidth. In the case of audio-visual content streaming, this effect can be dramatic in that the stream may break. There are no known electrical means to dynamically fix such problems.